Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 27:3 (Fall 2023)
Article: Anselm And The God Of Classical Theism
Author: Aaron Lewis

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Anselm And The God Of Classical Theism

Aaron Lewis

Aaron Lewis is a PhD student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky. He also serves a military chaplain in the Kansas Air National Guard with the 184th Wing at McConnell Air Force Base and is endorsed by the North American Mission Board. He earned his MDiv from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri. He and his wife Elizabeth live in Wichita, Kansas and are members of River Community Church.

In contemporary atonement theology, Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033–1109) is much maligned and unfortunately too often mischaracterized.1 Katherine Sonderegger correctly notes that “perhaps no other theologian was so honored in his day and rebuked in ours as St. Anselm of Canterbury.”2 Such criticisms largely center around Anselm’s systematic treatment of the doctrine of the atonement in Cur Deus Homo (Why God Became Man, 1098) (CDH), a work of vast significance in the history of the doctrine.

Two major critiques resound like a steady drum beat through the history of the scholarly reception of Anselm.3 First, it is alleged Anselm introduces an atonement paradigm de novo departing from the preceding patristic paradigm. The so-called “patristic view,” sometimes known as Christus Victor, holds that Christ’s death was primarily a matter of victory over the evil powers of sin, death, and the devil. By triumphing over evil, Jesus offered his flesh as a ransom paid to Satan. As the narrative goes, Anselm represents a departure from the patristic period. Anselm’s atonement doctrine has come to be known as the “satisfaction theory” or model of the atonement as it presents Jesus’ death as an act of obedience which served as a compensation to God for the injustice done to him through human sin and disobedience.4 Second, critics maintain that Anselm’s view represents a distortion in atonement theology by introducing a Western “juridical scheme” by overemphasizing the demands

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of justice.5 A major concern of Anselm’s is the restoration of God’s honor as sin robs the honor properly due him. Thus, critics maintain that Anselm’s use of “honor” is more reflective of his feudal cultural environment than it is biblical. As William Lane Craig rightly points out, Anselm’s God is often portrayed as a “feudal monarch, whose wounded ego demands” satisfacti...